Cataloger Spotlight: Modern Postcard

The catalog, which will mail twice next year (spring and fall), has been designed in a magalog format. Of the 24 pages, 14 plus the front and back covers comprise the core catalog. The other eight pages comprise an education-oriented insert bound in the center of the book. What’s more, the book includes a detachable postcard sample located on the opening spread (pgs. 2 and 3).

Once deciding to go forward with the catalog, “We conducted a focus group and received feedback from customers suggesting that our ‘magalog’ concept — sales content combined with information and educational material — was ideally suited for prospecting into markets less familiar with Modern Postcard,” Lundberg explains.

Modern Postcard is using other sophisticated catalog techniques. For instance, for the launch, the company created two treatments for customers and prospects, and versioned them per vertical industry targeted.

“Modern Postcard hasn’t positioned itself the way a typical printer does,” says Jeff Haggin, president and CEO of Haggin Marketing, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based consulting firm that worked with Modern Postcard on the catalog. “It’s more of a partner for business-to-market, to do direct marketing. Most printers are manufacturers first. These people are marketers first, very tuned in.”

As it does with other promotions, Modern Postcard backs the catalog with direct mail, e-mail and magazine advertising. For instance, to alert prospects and customers of the catalog’s arrival, Modern Postcard mailed a trifold postcard.

The Web site will be an integral component to Modern Postcard’s catalog launch support. “In addition to providing a landing page where customers can receive more information, download an electronic copy or request to be mailed a catalog,” Lundberg says, “we’re exploring technologies that’ll allow visitors to flip through and order from an online version.”